Strong, effective marketing isn’t just for generating homeowner leads. It also applies to generating job candidate leads – positioning your company and what it means to work there in the best possible light. That’s how you separate yourself from the hiring competition and succeed in bringing on the best and brightest.
To compete in today’s hiring market, you must treat your hiring process with the same attention you pay to sales and production.
Four suggestions to get started:
1. Identify what makes you better.
Start by asking your own employees: Why do you work here? What do you appreciate most about the culture, the benefits, the perks, the opportunities for advancement?
It’s not an accident that your happy employees feel the way they do. Start by pinpointing two or three key company attributes that distinguish you.
2. Showcase your strengths.
Once you’ve uncovered what makes you different, make sure you are reinforcing these same points in all of your outwardly-facing communications.
Ask your employees to post reviews on Glassdoor; highlight your distinctive work environment on your website; bake your standout specifics into your job descriptions; instruct the recruiters you work with to emphasize these same points.
Today’s candidates do their homework. Anyone worth hiring is evaluating you just as carefully as you are evaluating them.
3. Deliver a quality candidate experience.
Everything a candidate encounters, from the moment they submit a resume to the day they receive a final offer, affects his or her impression of your company.
So, review the steps involved in your hiring process and, just as you map out the perfect customer experience from start to finish, map out the perfect candidate experience (and stick to it):
- Respond immediately and graciously to every resume received.
- Process resumes and set up interviews quickly with promising candidates.
- Offer a warm welcome and tour when a candidate arrives for the interview.
- Assign each candidate a host/hostess to see them through their experience during their visit.
- Create and share a simple “one-sheet” print out that highlights work responsibilities, benefit specifics and other important job details.
- Pair candidates one-on-one with potential future peers, to give them a sense of what “a day in the life” feels like at your company.
Above all, keep the process moving from start to finish, clearly communicating next steps, timing and expectations along the way.
You’ve got established procedures on the sales, billing and operations side of the house. Your hiring process requires the same systematic care and attention.
4. Look beyond the obvious.
You need to employ tactics that go beyond simply writing job descriptions and posting them on job boards. In short, you’ll want to become a “recruitment machine,” working steadily to uncover quality candidates in unlikely places. Specifically:
- Look in complementary industries. People in hospitality, auto sales and other fields that are heavily commission-based and that also require working “off hours,” tend to transition well into our industry.
- Tap your network. If your organization’s leadership participates in professional networking groups and the like, make sure they are sharing your hiring needs with their peers, some of whom may be able to recommend candidates.
- Encourage employee referrals. Great employees have great friends. If you’ve already got a strong team, find ways to tap your existing staff for the people they know.
Hiring is a Contact Sport
Finding quality individuals to keep your business growing requires focus, energy and, like any sport, a competitive spirit and a willingness to do whatever it takes to succeed.
The great people are out there! Take ownership of the process and commit to winning at the hiring game.
